Keep This Day Circled

February 04, 2009|By Norm Wood, nwood@dailypress.com 247-4642

All it took was a single afternoon in January to crush two years of hard work toward the development of a plan to add an early signing period for college football. It doesn't look like the idea will see the light of day again in NCAA circles for quite some time.

More than 70 percent of coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A, and more than 80 percent of coaches in the Football Championship Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-AA, approved the concept of adding an early signing period and keeping the current signing period. That's what an American Football Coaches Association study found. Then, on Jan. 15, a panel of 21 FBS and FCS commissioners voted 17-4 to reject the idea. Such a resounding defeat doesn't encourage AFCA executive director Grant Teaff and some coaches that the idea will ever come to fruition.

"I think it's one of those unique things where nobody is right and nobody is wrong," Teaff said. "There's rationale to have (an early signing period) and there's rationale not to have one ... The truth of the matter is, in all honesty, if you have an early signing period, then that's when everybody is going to try to get them all signed. I think with the bowl games and some conferences having the playoffs and they're not able to get on the (recruiting) road as early as some other (conferences), as the conferences reviewed it, that's probably what took place (in the rejection).

"I don't review it as a slap in the face from the commissioners to the coaches. For the first time, we've had a (coaching) consensus on it. We put up a proposal that the majority of the coaches approved. We put it up for the approval of the conference commissioners and they said 'Nope.' In my opinion, it will really be some while before it ever comes up again."

College football joins field hockey, men's water polo and men's and women's soccer as the only sports without early signing periods. The signing period for football begins today and runs through April 1.

A few of the primary reasons for proposing an early signing period in football were to reduce recruiting costs, reduce the number of de-commitments and minimize the amount of time college coaches had to spend in January "baby-sitting" recruits who have already committed but can't sign a letter of intent until February. Many "blue-chip" recruits commit to schools in their junior years of high school. It seemed like the AFCA had developed a solid plan for implementing an early signing period, but FBS and FCS commissioners obviously didn't think so.

Two years ago, the AFCA asked a committee of college football assistant coaches to do a yearlong study concerning what they thought would be the best time for an early signing period. The result was that the third week in December seemed like a viable option. In Jan. 2008, FBS coaches involved with the AFCA voted at the AFCA convention to approve the proposal for a three-day early signing period to take place the third week in December.

"I'm for it," said Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer early last month.

"The thing that happens is it probably means you're going to be having official visits more during the season, but the other side of that is these kids get out and take a visit or they get to go by the school during the summer. ... The only thing I don't like about visits during the season is you're playing on Saturday, then you're getting ready for the next game on Sunday and you probably don't spend as much time with the prospect as you like. ... I think it would help the situation (as far as de-commitments are concerned). In January, things have changed sometimes. I think the more that we're settled in December, the less changing that'll be going on in January."

Teaff got mandates from FCS coaches and state high school associations involved with the AFCA to go forward with the proposal. The only caveats from the state high school associations were that the early signing period wouldn't take place in August or during the season, which made the third Wednesday in December a problem for about a half-dozen states that had high school state championships late in the month. The AFCA made special allowances for those states so that they wouldn't have to participate in the early signing period and would continue to use only the regular signing period.

After getting such overwhelming support from coaches, the AFCA went ahead and made the proposal to the NCAA, which is where the momentum stopped. One of the problems some commissioners had trouble with was finding a reasonable time frame for both FBS and FCS schools to benefit from an early signing period in December. FCS playoffs are in full swing until mid-December.

John Swofford, the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, was a proponent of at least keeping the issue on the table. The majority of ACC coaches were in favor of an early signing period.